Paper Flowers
by Lady Amiee
Summary: When love turns dark, and you step from death, who do you turn to but the demon in your head? He is the darkness in her soul, and she is the one he wants, but can Kai Leng love her enough to save her? Or will he be Shepard's downfall? AU. Grim-dark. Implied Dub-con and Non-con. Dark themes throughout, with self harm triggers.


_**Written to Evanescence. Imaginary. **_

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_He's watching me again, _I thought, keeping my expression clear of the musings in my head. Joker always said I gave my emotions away with my face; that I was too easy to read. He used to . . .. I stopped that train of thought before my heart broke all over again. Panic and pain began to rise, stifling me. My veins burned with it, and my skin broke out in a cold sweat. Choking on it, I gasped in a breath, trying to push the air past the lump swelling in my throat. I forced it back, only to be slammed with another memory.

I could still remember his desperate shout, my name ripped from his lips as he tried to catch me, tried to save me for a change.

_I grabbed Joker, hearing his bones break under my hands, but I didn't have time to be gentle. I needed to get him out. All around me the ship screamed, as if it felt the pain from the blasts of cannonfire. Metal and sparks flew at me, tearing through the air and hitting my armor. Joker gasped in pain as I threw him into the pod. _

"_Shepard!" he shouted as I glanced back, watching the CIC splitting in two. My heart stuttered and my breathing came in broken gasps, the hiss from my suit loud in my ears. Turning my head to face Joker, I met his eyes as the next blast hit the ship. Fear for him gave me the strength to lunge forward, clinging to a broken section of the wall around the pod. _

"_Shepard!" _

_Flung into space, fire and bits of the ship hitting me, throwing me through the airless void, I strained to press the button to save my friend. The effort cost me, but as his pod vanished from sight, my chest loosened slightly. He was safe. Now Joker was gone, I focused on saving myself, analyzing my position and ignoring the part of my mind screaming to give up and sleep. I couldn't breathe. Air hissed from a tear in my suit, and I struggled against it. My hand came up to the back of my neck, a desperate attempt to hold the remaining air in. Holding my breath, I began to shake. _

_I spun slowly, seeing my ship floating around me, hanging like the shattered remains of my dreams. She had held everything; my family, my future, my life. Now she was dead, dying . . . 'I'm dying too, there's no way I can come back from this'. Closing my eyes, I lowered my hands and watched the flickering fires of my ship going out. _

'_Please let Joker live.' _

_And then . . . I slept. _

If only Joker knew. He saved me more than once, just by being my best friend. Shaking my head so I didn't think about the loss I held in my heart, I sent a scathing glare at the dark-haired male staring at me from across the bland waiting room on the secret Cerberus base.

_Kai Leng. AKA the biggest ass in the galaxy. And my fucking boss. _

He raised a brow, a challenge clear in that one movement, and I flipped him the bird. I didn't have time to kick his ass again. _Childish? Yes. Satisfying? Yes, but still, I should know better by now. He's just gonna keep poking me. _I was almost free of the damn Cerberus ship and his constant presence. Even his voice annoyed me now; so different from the first time I'd heard it. His voice used to be sensual . . . sinfull and I'd fallen hard for it . . . _Until I learned who and what he was_. Now it sounded like nails raking over every nerve in my body. It sounded like punishment. Six months of beatings at his hand, six months of fighting to prove that my body wasn't weak . . . I hated his voice. _Liar. _

Turning away, I folded my arms across my chest, trying not to fidget in the hard metal chair. I didn't want him to know that his gaze burned, thresher acid eating through my clothes to gnaw at my flesh. Clenching my fists, I bit my lip, waiting for the doctor to call me through. Six months of healing. Six months of agony, as bone, muscle and nerves knit, weaving into something close to whole. The physical side of the trying to process felt like a walk in the park compared to wading through the headfuck of being brought back to life. _Not so whole in that side of things, are you? They made sure of that. _

I shuddered, my mind raging again, questioning the gods, both mine and the gods of other races, looking for answers to why I'd been brought back. I growled softly, hating everything and everyone on the station. Their fucked up science had brought me back, taken my goddamn right as a human being and twisted it, turned me into . . . _this_. I had a right to be left in peace, and they walked all over it. _Bastards_. They thought speaking to Lawson and Kelly would fix everything; make it all okay. They thought wrong. Nothing was okay. Nothing would ever be okay again. I was a walking corpse, alive in body . . . but broken in the mind.

_How is someone supposed to deal with being brought back from the dead, anyway? It's not like there's a fucking manual. _ Shaking my head again, I shut off the thoughts, letting the solace of knowing it was coming to an end sooth me. I was finally being given a mission, something more than training and psyc tests. Finally being given a mission away from . . . _him_.

_I just have to pass one more test and I'm free._

"Problem, Kat?" A silky-smooth voice whispered over the sensitive shell of my ear. A hand gripped my wrist as I turned, stopping me from raising my fist. "None of that now, wouldn't want you to be denied clearance for your mission, would we?" Instead of warm breath caressing my ear, a soft brush of his lips accompanied his words.

"Get your hands off me," I muttered, my voice a low, dangerous snarl. Anger simmered through me, twisting in my stomach and making me want to vomit. I clenched my teeth as it reached boiling point, and fisted my hands to hide the shaking of my fingers. "Now."

He chuckled, the sound grating over my skin like barbed wire, before he bit my ear. "No. This is fun, seeing you all upset and flustered. I wonder, my Katrina, how hot I can get you?" His free hand moved to my jaw, turning me forcefully to look at him. His mask hid his eyes, but I knew the lake-green irises would be almost swallowed by the black of his pupils at this point. "You always get so fiery in training. It makes me wonder how you'd be in . . . other places."

My lip curled up, and I tugged against his grip. I knew I was taunting him, baiting him . . . I knew he wouldn't let it go, would keep poking me, but I couldn't help but fight back. "What do you want, Leng?" I asked after a long, pregnant pause. I knew exactly what he wanted, but refused to acknowledge it.

He wanted one thing. Domination.

The Cerberus assassin hated that I resisted every single thing he did, that I refused to bow to him, give into him. _But I'm not resisting him. I haven't shut him down, have I? I've let him goad me, taunt me until I react. Why am I doing this to myself? Why am I doing it to him? Why do I want to fight him, argue with him, need . . . him. _

"I want . . .." He paused, something flashing on his face. "I want you to love me," he whispered, his voice almost too low to hear.

I swallowed, blinking for a second. "What you feel for me isn't love, Leng. You want to hurt me, to own me. That's not love." I tugged my hand again as he spun me around to face him. "What do you want?" I asked again.

"You know what I want, my love. I want you, in my bed, chained and bound while I rid myself of this obsession." His forehead pressed to mine and for a moment, the cruel mask he wore slipped away. "Why can't I stop wanting you? Why?"

"I don't know . . ." My own words were pulled from a part of me that I'd always locked away. "I don't know why I want you either. It's sick and wrong, but I want to . . .." I couldn't finish, couldn't give him that opening. I wanted to heal him. I had a hero complex, I knew that, but why did I want to save him? I'd spent six months with Kai, training with him, fighting, yet still I wanted to save the bastard. He grated on every nerve I had, but the vulnerability and loneliness in his eyes when he thought I wasn't looking always reached my heart. _Damn it. Damn him. Damn Cerberus and more importantly, damn myself. _

My inner turmoil was cut off as his lips gently pressed against mine. Surprised by the tender, almost non-existent kiss, I didn't move, didn't lash out, and didn't . . . hate it. He tasted like darkness and hate, but passion, and need as well. All of these I wanted, all of these I owned in my soul. I slowly kissed him back, the tiniest of caresses, our lips just brushing. Never before had I felt such a soft touch, and never before had I wanted the touch to be harder. I wanted to slide my hands into his hair and hold him captive to me, to taste him . . to be . . . his.

"Commander Shepard? Ms Lawson will see you now."

I pulled away and met his shocked eyes through the blue of his mask. My heart pounded, and my mind went blank for a second. Then the two sides of me began to war. One part of me wanted to press against him, to ignore the world around me and just . . . touch him. The other wanted to push him away, to scream and rail at him until he backed down. I stepped back, my mouth going dry, before spinning on heel, my hand slipping from his unresisting grasp.

_What the fuck did I just do? _

That was the question, wasn't it? Why now, after six months, did I give in? My mind flashed back to the first time I'd heard his voice. As I stepped into Lawson's office, I let my memory flow over me like rippling water.

_And so I woke, having died and been reborn, remade . . .. Entering the world with a scream, only to be soothed by a voice that matched the demons in my mind. _

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_A/N: Hello! Welcome to my new project! I hope you're all in the mood for some dark writing! I am going to be having a lot of fun with this new story, but don't worry, I'm not abandoning Mass Illusion. _

_Please let me know what you think of this, and if you want more, I love your reviews! Also, give some huge thanks to the massive support group I have that helped me gain the courage to post this. I'm hopefully going to be updating once a week, maybe every other week, depending on time and things. Thanks to Gypsy and Miz, as well as Palaven for helping me out and please go read their stuff! _

_So, please read and review, let me know what you think! *Gives all the cookies* And don't forget to give me all the cuddles, as I know I'm gonna cry writing this. Lovens! Oh, and this was written to Imaginary, by Evanescence. Please listen to it, the band are amazing! _


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